The Covid-19 Anniversary Reaction
The first mention of the word “coronavirus” on MetalSucks came on February 25, 2020 — one year ago today — when Testament, Exodus and Death Angel’s show in Milan was canceled.
By that time, most of us had heard of what was then still most commonly referred to as “the novel coronavirus,” well before “Covid-19” had entered the vernacular. But for many, it was still just an abstract concept, something we’d only begun to hear about, and very few of us took it seriously.
The idea of a virus capable of inflicting mass death throughout the globe and shutting down the economy wasn’t only foreign, it wasn’t in the realm of possibility, our feeble brains unable to comprehend such a dramatic shift. “I’ll worry about it if and when it gets to NYC,” I naïvely commented in the above linked article, before conceding, “it seems more or less inevitable that we’ll all have to alter our lives in some way because of it, big or small.” Still, in the back of my mind then, and likely yours: it couldn’t ever happen here in America. Our doctors, our scientists, even our politicians (lol) will protect us against this: we’re too good, we know what to do!
Multiple members of the traveling party on that tour were very sick, we’d later learn. Death Angel drummer Will Carroll almost died. The bands and their crew flew back home to America, bringing the virus with them, after the tour fell apart. Still contagious, and maskless. I’m not blaming them: they simply didn’t know any better, and neither did anyone else.
Where were you when you first realized how serious the pandemic was? Every friend group had that one person who was sounding the alarm earlier in February, or perhaps even as far as back as January, while the rest of us replied incredulously, “No way man, it’ll be fiiiine!”
Little did we know we wouldn’t be able to see and hear live music for an entire year and counting.
What was the last concert you attended before the world shut down?
On Saturday, February 22 I caught a magnificent Opeth performance at the famed Apollo Theater. Afterwards I went to unwind at a crowded bar, unimaginable now. The next weekend, I witnessed the one-two punch of Devin Townsend and Cult of Luna on consecutive nights. What a way to go out!
And that would be it.
Before long, the world started crumbling, felt no more acutely than in the live entertainment sphere. Lacuna Coil, Italy natives forced to face the virus head-on before we stupid Americans took it seriously, pulled the plug on their tour on March 2. Soon after, Slipknot and Trivium canceled their planned jaunts of Asia, which seemed prescient when we foolishly believed this thing was mostly an Asia problem.
On March 6, news broke that an attendee at a Tool concert in New Zealand a week earlier had been infected. Months later we’d learn that the band’s frontman, Maynard James Keenan, had also been infected while there. And then he too flew home on an airplane. Still contagious, with no mask. Again, I’m certainly not blaming him, or anyone; the authorities at the time were saying not to wear masks, that we needed to save them for healthcare professionals and that they might not be an effective barrier anyway. A fucked up political gambit, but a necessary one, perhaps, to prevent the inevitable run on PPE supplies from impacting our healthcare workers as much as it might have otherwise. And it’s not as if we had strong leadership from the top.
The cancelation of SXSW was the big eureka moment that jerked the music industry into realizing how big of a problem we had on our hands. Hundreds of millions of dollars, hundreds of jobs, and an entire year of planning evaporated in an instant. If you’re more of a sports person than a music one, it probably hit you when the NBA pulled the plug on their season. From there it was one tour after the next coming down in shockingly fast fashion (and other major sports leagues), too many to list or count, and besides, you remember it because you lived it. Just an avalanche of bad news, with the situation changing drastically from day to day, hour to hour. Some bands continued to insist they weren’t canceling their in-progress tours, not fully grasping the severity of the situation. I recall that The Acacia Strain were one of the last, the most stubborn, to pack it in and drive home; I bet they now regret allowing so many fans to congregate in such close quarters, knowing what we know now (once again, I’m not casting blame; those guys all seem to be stand-up fellas).
We were all fools.
On March 14, my daughter was born. I was lucky to be present in the delivery room; many hospitals had already stopped letting partners in, forcing women to give birth without the comfort of a friend or family member. We still weren’t wearing masks. No one was, not even the doctors. We had several conversations with the medical staff at the hospital about the virus, we asked (while standing one foot apar!) what they thought would happen, breathing infected respiratory droplets all over one another.
On March 15, a Sunday, the world truly shut down. NYC’s mayor announced schools would be closed, forcing dawn to dusk, seven-day-a-week childcare upon working parents. The edict hit poor parents the hardest, but it affected anyone with young children acutely, forcing them to scramble, to adjust everything. The dual realities of pandemic life and work never fully squared in America, even now, our government massively letting us down, forcing work to continue while the virus kept propagating because capitalism yayyyyy.
For my family, we suddenly had a four-year-old at home with us at a time we had been expecting to devote our attention to a newborn. No school, no relatives to help, no babysitters, no playdates, nowhere to go. All but locked inside with a rambunctious four-year-old and a screaming baby. It was a nightmare.
We packed up our bags and fled upstate 10 days later, “temporarily” relocating to the house my wife grew up in, moving in with her own mom, recently widowed. Having an extra set of hands to help with childcare would be crucial, and would get us through this tough period, we thought. We’d planned to return to Brooklyn in a couple of weeks, or a month, or however long it took for the virus to disappear. Wasn’t that goal of the lockdown? Get rid of it. Like New Zealand and Australia did.
Neither of those things happened, needless to say. We never left Woodstock, opting to stay for the extra help through the spring, then the summer and beyond, and the promise of at least some in-person school for our soon-to-be kindergartener. And I don’t need to tell you that the virus continued raging.
Bands naïvely rebooked their tours for the summer. Then the fall. Then winter 2021. Then they gave up entirely.
We at MetalSucks took it on the chin, too. Not as bad as venues and promoters, to be sure, who absolutely got it the worst. Not to mention all the musicians, though that should be obvious. Still, the loss of advertising income from the live entertainment sector hurt. The problem is hardly unique to us, but felt acutely by all online publishers in the music space. Thankfully we’re alright, we have other sources of income, we got a PPP loan… we’ll make it (much to the chagrin of our detractors). Once again, I don’t want to discount those who have it way worse right now.
I’ve taken to winter sports, because you’ve got to stay active to stay sane when you live in such a cold place but an endless, unforgiving winter. I spent countless hours shoveling snow off the small frozen pond on our property here to keep it clear for skating. I’ve spend countless more hours out there with a hose to try and smooth it out, anxiously anticipating whether events with an eye towards how it would affect the pond first, cancel school for my oldest second, and everything else third. Who knew how much went into pond rink maintenance?? I certainly had no clue. Today I’ll go skiing for the first time in 25 years (and second time ever): wish me luck!
I could not have imagined ANY of that a year ago. Same for the gardening endeavor I detailed in this space throughout the spring, summer and fall (hockey is the new gardening). No fucking clue. February 2021 Ben would be completely unrecognizable to February 2020 Ben.
And now it’s been almost an entire year. I’ve watched the seasons change in a different way than I’m accustomed to and because there’s little else to do. And while it’s hard to believe when it’s still snowing every friggin’ day, that early part of spring — where it’s mostly very cold but not bone-chillingly frigid, and you get just a taste of warmth here and there — is coming soon. Even if true spring up here is still quite a ways off.
And that’s when the anniversary reaction will REALLY hit. “What was I doing on this day last year?” That fucked up feeling, almost like deja vu, where it just GETS you, makes you literally stop in your tracks. It might be triggered by seeing the date on your calendar, or by a song, a certain seasonal feeling, anything, really. It happened to me yesterday when I went to a store after work, and upon emerging back into the parking lot, I looked up, realized it was still light out at nearly 6pm and said “holy shit” out loud. I imagine most of you will feel it too, or already have. Over and over for the next couple of months, it’s not gonna stop all spring long as we re-live what happened exactly one year ago. Only hardly anything has changed. We’re still basically doing the exact same things we were then, only we’re better able to handle it now, and many of us have gone through massive life changes in the meantime.
The difference is that now there’s some cautious optimism for the future instead of only fear and uncertainty, although there’s still plenty of that floating around too. Despite its bungled rollout, the arrival of the vaccine is a game-changer. My mom, who is 75, got both shots. My dad and mother-in-law, who are slightly younger, each have one shot with a second scheduled soon. Most folks I know with older parents are more or less in the same boat, although it hasn’t been easy getting them appointments (navigating byzantine government websites is difficult enough for me, let alone senior citizens). But it’s happening. Slowly, but it’s happening. And while we certainly can’t breathe a huge sigh of relief just yet, especially with the emergence of new coronavirus variants, it’s reassuring knowing that at least my mom is 95% less likely to die from a trip to the grocery store to pick up a carton of milk.
As a relatively healthy 39-year-old, I’m fairly far down the vaccine eligibility list. That’s fine, I’m happy to wait my turn. My hope is that it’ll come some time during mid-summer. Besides, I had Covid, I got it in late March before we fled NYC — likely while in the hospital watching my wife give birth!! — so I presumably have some level of immunity (how much is unclear). The symptoms were mild, thankfully, a few days of low-grade fever and a very slight cough. But for the purposes of my profession and lifelong passion, it hardly matters anyway: shows and tours won’t resume — at least at any kind of meaningful scale — until a large segment of the population is vaccinated.
Dr. Fauci recently said he envisions a return to live events at some point this coming autumn. Based on what I’m seeing, that seems reasonable. Sure, the early vaccine rollout was horribly mismanaged, but it’s moving along much better at the moment, both the experience of having done it for two months already and an increase in the supply of vaccine — with two more manufacturers coming on the market soon — giving me reason to feel optimistic. My gut says we won’t see significant touring activity before November or so, but who knows, I won’t say September is out of the question. You can pretty much count summer entirely out if you haven’t already; the festival and tour cancelations have already begun en masse.
The live experience will be different than what it was — we’ll likely need to wear masks at shows for some time still, I’m not sure what kind of capacity restrictions will be in place, and the thought of being crammed shoulder to shoulder inside is quite unsettling. But man, can you imagine LIVE MUSIC?? I kind of can’t anymore.
Every now and then I catch myself day dreaming, or I end up watching some old live show on YouTube, and I get goosebumps! And then I start fantasizing. The excitement of walking into a venue for the first time in a year and a half, getting a beer, milling about, anticipating… that moment the stage goes dark, the crowd erupts, and the intro music starts rolling… and the band comes on and hits that first note… AHHHHH! I got goosebumps just typing it. And again (for real) re-reading it in the edit phase. The energy in that room is going to be un-fucking-real! Hundreds of folks united, all feeling the same way as you. Happening all over the U.S., all over the world, in tandem over the course of several weeks or months, even an entire year. It’s going to be a unification unlike anything we’ve ever experienced in our lifetimes, like watching your favorite team pull off a massive playoff comeback or of celebrating on the streets after a momentous political victory, but multiplied by a thousand.
Until then, the next couple of months will be an emotional rollercoaster, a mix of nostalgia, sadness and optimism. Use the anniversary reaction as a moment to reflect without getting too caught up in it. Hang in there, friends.
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This post is part of a series of editorials that tackle topics more personal in nature than MetalSucks’ usual fare. These journals bridge my personal experiences with the world of metal while offering a behind-the-scenes look at forces within the industry and a peek behind the curtain of how this website operates. Previous entries:
On the Natural Bias of Friendship, Metal Bands, and Access Journalism
Does Your Age Define Your Taste in Metal?
The Endless Spring
Grinding Through the Nonexistent Summer
Winter and the Long Road Ahead
Does Location Matter for Your Band’s Chances of “Making It”?
